


Across the Universe (Nothing's Gonna Change My World)

by sullacat



Series: Across the Universe [7]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Married Couple, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullacat/pseuds/sullacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>But Bones had never left Jim's side. Through decades of suspensions (both of them), retrofits of the ship, more illnesses and injuries than anyone could remember, it had always been the two of them.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Across the Universe (Nothing's Gonna Change My World)

**Author's Note:**

> I was 5/6 of the way through a "Five Things" story that I picked up off the Star Trek Kink Meme. I took a break to wrap my mind around that last pesky section, and iPod struck. This story emerged fully written from my head. Hope you like it.
> 
> None of this belongs to me, of course. No infringement intended, no profit made.

_stardate 2283.65_

 

He couldn't stop looking at the pictures. _When did that happen?_

Still, the photographs were proof of what his own eyes had been ignoring. The entire group of them, all the original Enterprise bridge crew and their families, had met for dinner and drinks on Earth last month when Spock made Admiral. Everyone had been able to make it, the first time in five years they'd all been together in one room. They laughed and told stories about the old days until the wee hours of the morning, back when they were all Ensigns and Lieutenants, not Commander-this and Captain-that. Champagne flowed freely, though everyone who wanted a snort of Scotty's moonshine scotch was rewarded with that familiar tingly feeling and the requisite headache that accompanied it the next morning.

Nyota's pictures arrived with the daily messages that morning, along with some additional Federation communiques for both he and Jim. The sight of all of them together again, happy and alive ( _thank God they'd all made it out alive_ ) pleased him to no end, but there was something else. Not sadness, per se, but there was no denying it. They all looked so _old_. Fuck, even Chekov had some salt and pepper in that thinning hair of his, that whiz kid who now wore captain stripes.

What the fuck...

They weren't old. Jesus, Jim just turned fifty last year, and he was a only few years older than that.

Bones looked in the mirror, tugging at his own hair. Not going bald, thank fuck for that, but there was gray there now. 'White at the temples' is what Jim called it, but he was full of shit.

Why did the reflection in his mirror look more like his father than him?

Shaking it off, Bones turned his head to the datapad with his official Starfleet messages. Soon he was lost in his own thoughts again, so deeply entrenched (not that his hearing was going) that he hadn't heard the door open, hadn't noticed Jim until he was sitting next to him, pecking away at his own PADD.

"Whatcha got?"

"Hmmm," Bones replied with a nod, eyes still glued to his PADD.

"Really? That good is it?" Jim said, leaning in to look.

Bones looked up. "Sorry," he said, leaning over to give Jim's shoulder a squeeze. "Sorry. You alright?"

"Long day," he said, putting his datapad down and untying his boots with a sigh. "Better now. What's that?" he asked again, picking the PADD up again.

"Admiral Macaeas," he said nonchalantly. "It's nothing."

"Commander in Chief - Starfleet sends you a confidential message and you say it's nothing?" Jim asked curiously, eyes blue as ever as he slipped on his reading glasses to look down at his own PADD. "What are they offering you this time?"

Every few years they offered Bones the job of Starfleet Surgeon General, a position Bones turned down with regularity and enthusiasm, knowing that it was more of a political position, and that he'd never be able to handle that. He loved being with his patients, one in particular too much. "Starfleet Medical."

Jim put down his datapad. "Medical," he repeated. "Ofaranos retiring?"

"Hmm," Bones nodded.

"They want you." Bones looked up, always surprised to see that look of pride in Jim's eyes, though he'd seen it many times since they'd first fell in together. "You'll get Admiral stripes for that."

"Bah," he shook his head, putting the pad down. "I'm not taking it."

"Why not?"

"Jim, we've been together, Lord, I can't even say how long we've been together without getting sick."

"Repeat after me, Bones. Twenty-five years."

"Twenty-five years," he said. "If I haven't left you by now, I'm not leaving."

That look. Jim would get that silly look on his face and all of a sudden Bones could see the scamp he must have been as a child. "What if I were to go with you?"

"What?" Bones looked over at him incredulously.

"What what," Jim shrugged. "I could retire. Do something else."

Bones just snorted at this. Four tours of five years earned you retirement, and they'd done one more than that. Twenty-five years chasing bad guys, helping to settle new worlds, discovering new species, fighting hatred and bigotry when ever they could. Writing, breaking, and re-writing the Prime Directive a dozen time, and tweaking most other Starfleet regulations until they fit.

But while the journey was exciting as ever, they were moving slower. One by one the others had made their way to other ships, earned promotions that gave Spock, Sulu, and even Chekov their own commands. Jim's young bridge crew had blossomed into exceedingly capable staff, and he seeded over a dozen Federation starships with officers that truly embodied old Admiral Pike's philosophy of "leap before you look".

But Bones had never left Jim's side. Through decades of suspensions (both of them), retrofits of the ship, more illnesses and injuries than anyone could remember, it had always been the two of them.

"I've had a good run, it's been everything I ever wanted." Jim gave him another of those 'Jim Kirk' smiles, still deadly, even more beautiful for having lived and loved and lost. "But it's time to give it to someone else, let them have those magical experiences."

"I don't believe you," Bones replied, nonplussed.

Jim looked long and hard at Bones. "I know what you're thinking," he smirked as he stood, making his way to one of the shelves and pulling out a bottle of bourbon, pouring two glasses. "That I'm full of shit. I am not," he added, handing one glass to Bones as he sat down next to him again. "I admit I used to think that going out in a blaze of glory was all I could hope for, a really good death."

"And now?" Bones asked, curious as he took a sip of his drink. He never thought Kirk would be happy anywhere else.

"Now, I want to watch you be the best Head of Starfleet Medical that anyone's ever seen." Jim sipped his drink, the time when he'd slug it back in one gulp long gone. Now was a time for savoring things. "All those plans you had, those ideas for ratcheting up research, for training the doctors to heal the mind as well as the body. This is your time to make that happen." Jim kicked him gently. "And I want to see Joanna and those babies of hers, Grandpa," nudging Bones with one bare foot. "I know you'd like to be closer to them. C'mon, why don't you want this?

"What about you? You can't retire," Bones told him. "You'll go crazy just sitting there on Earth."

"Then I won't just sit there. I'm Jim Fucking Kirk," he grinned, that smiling not fading one bit since he cast that first cheeky grin at him, so many years ago. "I can write my own ticket. They'll give me anything I want down there, you know that. We could really shake up the Academy. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"You, behind a desk?" Bones snorted. "I think not."

"Then I won't be behind a desk. This is what I mean," he said, turning himself so his chair faced Bones. "We can change all the things about the school that we hated, make it a place of real learning, not just studying books and simulated tests. Advanced programs," he said, his eyes lighting up. "Have other species come and teach, lecture, learn. Teach the cadets about what they're really going to face out there."

The look on Bones' face told him he wasn't buying it. Jim Kirk, happy on Earth?  
.  
"Look, I know what Old Spock said about the other us, the other me. That I couldn't stand retirement, that all I wanted was to stay in space." He shrugged again, his mouth twisting. "I don't feel that way. I don't feel that emptiness. Maybe _that_ Kirk had some need to keep moving, keep chasing that next adventure. I don't." Taking one of Bones' hands in his own, he interlaced their fingers, looking down at them. He loved Bones' hands. "I've had the best life I could possibly ask for, and I've had you in it, next to me the whole time. And frankly," he said, "I feel bad for that other guy, really, I do. Sounds to me like he didn't have it as good."

"Jim," Bones began.

"Leonard," Jim replied, putting his hands up, cradling Bones' face in his hands. "You've followed me all over this goddamn galaxy. Now it's my turn. I'm following you."

It was a few moments before he could speak. "Love you, Jim," Bones whispered. "You haven't heard that enough from me."

"Shut up, Bones." Jim pulled at Bones' shirt, pulling it out of his waistband and slid his hands under to feel warm skin. "You've got an hour to show me how much you still love this old guy, then you get going, telling whoever you need to tell that you're taking it. Then I'll make my own transmission, get some plans going."

Bones opened his mouth to ask again, was he really sure about this, but Jim silenced him the only way he knew how. Twenty-five years together had taught him so much about the man next to him, yet he had no doubt that the next twenty-five would bring new adventures for them, where ever the hell they landed, as long as they were together.

2009.06.10


End file.
